BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol I, No. 7
Oct 20, 2004

 
 
 social criticisms
 by Vicente-Ignacio de Veyra III

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THE WORLD:

America Not War?

FOR A LONG TIME NOW, the entire globe's societies' impression on war and peace (including and especially ours) has predominantly always been that the world's wars since the end of World War II have been perpetrated only by a number of post-Hitler despotic ambitions, like Pol Pot's or Che Guevara's, and that the United States of America (often referred to simply as America) functioned as the peacekeeper and checker of such, and therefore that the world owes its gratitude to Americans. With a few exceptions, we all tend to believe that. This belief has become so much of a religion that we tend to brainwash ourselves into forgetting certain factual realities, such as for example glaring historical data that supports the reality that America the superpower actually helped maintain, if not directly established, certain of the oppressive regimes during and even after the so-called Cold War. For one, much of Eastern Europe's post-World War II suffering can even be blamed on the chief US-British alliance that allowed (or promised) this big chunk to serve under Soviet expansionist ambitions, as if it was for the US and Britain to give away. Certainly Eastern Europe is not going to hear an apology from America, not in a long time; instead Eastern Europe will hear -- and in fact has been hearing -- the hype that the US spearheaded (by example and what-not) the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet hands. The US and Britain knew who Stalin was, but it had to do an Aguinaldo and sell East Europe to the Soviets to guarantee itself of Stalin's direct support, in effect bypassing democracy for its own self-defense. To some extent, a dilemma. But in later years, that dilemma became a clear choice, when America -- in the service of its paranoia vis a vis an expansionist USSR -- preached democracy while sanctioning freedom-fighters all over the world, inclusive of the freedom fighters in the Philippines against the US-backed Marcos dictatorship. The seeming philosophy then within American think tanks was that any despotic oppression is definitely going to be better than a communist regime, and though perhaps to a certain extent this might be true, it hardly holds as an excuse for what was to manifest itself as the American Empire's standard behavior in the global political and economic arena.

Recently, America's pride as a policeman of the world found another item in Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, American media hype (fed by American government hype) goes that the world owes the elimination of despots that oppressed Kurds and other Islamic ethnic groups (in the case of Iraq) and women (in the case of Afghanistan) to America’s benevolence. This hype will not touch on the fact that Iraq’s despot had been the benefactor of atomic weapons deliveries by the elder George Bush’s administration prior to that despot’s invasion of the former province of Iraq (which former province early British imperialists gifted to a sheikh), Kuwait. The damning brief that we heard in American media has been on France’s maintained contracts with Saddam right after the first Gulf War, quite an unfair condemnation in light of the fact that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton also maintained contracts with other states touted as harboring terrorists (inclusive of Libya) during this same period. Yes, Saddam Hussein used to work for the US and had benefited from weapons deliveries from the world’s biggest exporter of war tools, equipment, and paraphernalia, in short the world’s prime supporter of wars and military oppression, the United States of America.

Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were likewise a beneficiary of US sponsorship in Afghanistan’s fight against invading Russian forces. One wonders therefore whether the United States’ ethos of democracy is even an issue or a premium in its sponsorship of certain figures. How come these figures easily forget such an ethos during their terms of power? Has America actually failed to lead by example? Or was America’s sponsorship of certain figures not really in the name of “freedom”, beyond the hype, and that its sponsored figures knew this all along?

This writer’s perspective reflects that of many citizens of the world, that while the US may indeed be the most democratic country on earth, it is not exactly a democratic “model” in the way it has carried itself in international waters, whether in the sponsorship of political leaders of nations or in the WTO whose rules it constantly seeks exemption from.

It is not simply ludicrous but frustrating when the US (usually during Republican stints at the White House) prides itself with, nay brags about, having removed “demons” it had helped install, as if the removal is virtue enough that doesn’t require an apology from a bully empire. Today, America continues this tradition. It does it when George W. Bush boasts of having removed the Taleban which – only a few years back – he honored in Texas when he was still governor of the state, decidedly as his way of thanking said party (unbeknownst to the people of Texas, of course) for considering a plan by Unocal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan through to Pakistan from the Caspian Sea. Unocal contracted Texan and Bush’s good friend Dick Cheney’s Halliburton to drill the pipes. Bush’s number one campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay of Enron, was likewise on the beneficiary end of the contract.

America also has the habit of hyping up its role as a checker of those who commit human rights violations, e.g. China, North Korea, sometimes even Malaysia, while it turns a deaf ear to Amnesty International’s calls for similar protests on Saudi Arabia’s beheadings and imprisonment of political enemies. While it applauds the calls of certain regions to govern themselves as independent states, e.g. Kuwait, the former Soviet republics, the former Yugoslav republics, East Timor, even Taiwan if it could, it denies a similar support to the Palestinian clamor. Hypocrisy has latently become an American brand that it has exported into the souls of humankind, including the souls of many an Americanized CEO in post-Marcos Philippines.

But the America that we’re talking about here is not necessarily the Americans, and this is where terrorists who have the habit of taking it all on civilian Americans abroad are quite mistaken. I do not believe the majority of Americans are aware of their country’s growing ill repute in the globe. The American majority is no better than the majority of Filipinos at getting access to information about their leaders. While the Philippine upper middle class or intelligentsia malign the average Filipino’s political maturity which is supposedly loaded with under-information and disinformation crap, blaming their ignorance for the election of such embarrassing figures as Joseph Estrada, the American majority is not exactly better informed (or disinformed) about their own leaders. I do not believe many Americans had access to the knowledge that Usama bin Laden’s immediate family were erstwhile business partners of George W. Bush (made erstwhile only a few weeks after the World Trade Center mishap) in several Bush-owned companies. Judging by the present poll surveys on the US presidential race, it is easy to deduce that the majority of Americans are ignorant of this fact (unless this majority finds no conflict of interest in a leader whose business interests embraced nations believed to have harbored terrorists, in which case we can say that the American majority must be a very stupid majority). A recent CNN survey had it that when it comes to questions on issues, Democrat contender for the US presidency John Kerry would almost always take a commanding lead; and that the reason why the overall poll would still have the two candidates neck and neck is due to the fact that only about 16% of Americans vote on issues, the rest vote on such artista factors as the smile, the color of the hair, the shape of the face, or whatever seems to be standards of measure en vogue in this land of Britney Spears. If you’ve always believed that Filipino democracy is hopeless, is this seeming truth about American democracy supposed to be a reason for us to smile?

Well, maybe. But I wonder how we could smile once we carry the knowledge that in our age the American Empire’s shadow has been responsible for much oppression in its fight against other oppressions, a behavior that has not shown any sign of let-up. As for the general world’s ignorance, it is often said that what you don’t know won’t hurt you. And yet the facts have hurt. Consider, for example, the average Filipino’s lack of health care, the cause of which can be traced back to America’s (and the Philippine government collaborators’) turning a blind eye to the fraudulent loans to the Philippine republic by American creditors.

Yes, the majority of the world will remain ignorant, and even if a lot of us is to gain access to information, we may not necessarily believe the facts after years of having positioned ourselves in the brainwashed comfort zone that self-preaches our having been the benefactors of America’s goodness. How many among us, for example, will believe that -- to repeat -- Osama bin Laden’s family had invested in an American company owned by the Bush family (with James Baker, former elder George Bush’s cabinet man, sitting on its board)? Will you stand in disbelief if you are told that a subsidiary of this company, called United Defense, is involved in the manufacture of defense systems, most notably the Bradley armored fighting vehicle which had to hurry supplies for the present war in Iraq? Perhaps not many Americans, if they are stupid, would not believe that the Carlyle Group (mother holdings company of United Defense) actually did gain profits after September 11, 2001. They will call it a lie and still vote Bush back into power. They will call me stupid. They will call one a liar if he tells them that Carlyle, the 11^th largest defense contractor for the United States government, withdrew the bin Laden names in the Carlyle list of investors when media started to get curious, even at the height of Carlyle’s going public in December 2001 and raking in a whopping $237 million worth of shares sold. They will perhaps see no conflict of interest in seeing the elder Bush’s name in the chair of the board.

(TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)

Posted at the Bananacue Republic website 10/19/04.

"Yes, the majority of the world will remain ignorant, and even if a lot of us is to gain access to information, we may not necessarily believe the facts after years of having positioned ourselves in the brainwashed comfort zone that self-preaches our having been the benefactors of America's goodness."


The Bradley armored fighting vehicle in action Iraq. The vehicle is manufactured by United Defense, a company owned by the Bush and bin Laden families.